The black mare snorted at the stranger’s stuttering plea. It would take very little effort to end him where he lay, but he would not see it coming. The thought of killing a blind horse made her balk: strange that knowing her opponent could not see to try to avoid a killing blow bothered her more than the thought of striking a felled horse. He did not appear to be either Arabian or Akhal-Teke, however, and so there was no real reason to kill him. He was clearly incapable of defending himself with anything more than words. El Aran marked him mentally as a non-threat. "You’re not worth the energy it would take," she told him mildly just as another voice cut across the end of her words.

El Aran pivoted to confront whoever had cried out even as she registered the voice as belonging to her son. She relaxed and pointed her ears toward him, her thoughts heading toward that moment when he’d turned tail and run away from an intruder, but before the memory could do more than flash through her mind her son flung down a demand as he skid to a halt and dared to snake his head at her. The black mare’s ears flattened and she mimicked his posture even as her heart fluttered uncomfortably within her chest. She had not thought Encantador’s betrayal had gone so far as to turn him against her— surely he wasn’t going to attack her. What had that Akhal-Teke told her son before she arrived to drive him off? What poison had he poured into Orhan’s ears? The blind horse on the ground behind her was forgotten beneath the surge of her uncertainty and the tiny, traitorous voice in the back of her head that swore Orhan would bleed if he struck her. El Aran had never thought of hurting her son: she’d nip him when he was younger, to reprimand or reinforce some bit of discipline —such as, “avoid snakes!”— but never to hurt for the sake of delivering pain.

It was a disturbing thought, one El Aran did not like. She lifted her head and straightened, forcing her ears up to stare at her pale son with a furrowed brow. Orhan was her son. He had no reason to attack her, and thus she would not treat him like an enemy. He wanted to talk and she had questions for him. There was no need to leap to any conclusions, not yet. "Konuşmak," she said, and glanced at the blind horse to be sure he hadn’t made any threatening moves toward her. El Aran cocked one hind hoof just in case and returned her attention to her son just as they were joined by another horse, a mare who was unfamiliar to the seer. The new arrival was a pretty flaxen chestnut with white speckling on her underbelly and throat. She also had big, dark eyes and the unmistakably dished face of an Arabian.

The gods must be laughing. Surely it was some grand celestial joke— except the gods did not meddle in the lives of mortals except to further their own affairs. “Aşk, beni kurtarma,” she breathed. She kept her eyes on the Arabian as the mare came to stop behind Orhan. Her stance was not threatening in the least. El Aran’s ears tipped back then flattened as she backed up, and she startled when her hoof bumped the flesh of the blind horse on her shore. Her only other ways of escape were the ocean —in which she would forfeit the Desert to her enemy— or further into the territory. If she ran inland, she doubted Orhan would follow her, and she would not abandon him to this Arabian.

El Aran planted her legs and chose to stand her ground with a stranger at her back and a son she did not know before her. "Get away from him, orospu," she hissed at the Arabian who stared down her dished nose. They had always been such a haughty breed. The seer tipped her slightly dished face up to match her stare for stare. El Aran wished Vesti had come with her today, for the sorrel chestnut was the only horse left in the black mare’s life that she knew was trustworthy.